Schism
by Alchemine
Summary: When Salazar Slytherin deserted Hogwarts, he left behind a secret that would lie hidden for a thousand years -- and began a rivalry between Houses that would last even longer. Contains implied slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** This story is set a few years after the founding of Hogwarts. Since there's not much in canon about the Founders' era, I'm making some assumptions regarding it; if anything sounds strange, just let me know, and I'll try to explain my reasoning. Also, unlike most of my fics, this one does contain some ships, one of which is m/m slash. It's mostly implied at this point, and I don't expect it to go beyond the PG-13 level (if that), but if you think you may find it upsetting, please consider this your cue to stop reading. Otherwise, welcome, and away we go!

~~~

_In addition to its greenhouses and vegetable patches, Hogwarts had an ancient walled herb garden, so old that many said the Founders themselves had planted it. No one knew whether this was true or not. However, the plots were certainly arranged in the style horticulturalists of that age had deemed proper. Seasoning herbs -- savory, chive, basil -- lay near parsley and leeks for the kitchens. Several rows contained hollyhock, mallow, comfrey, feverfew and other medicinal plants. There was even a small section of madder and woad, though no dyes or paints had been made at the castle in at least a century. _

At the rear of this enclosure, near the aromatic herbs, lay a door that no one now alive had ever seen; a door that only a few people had ever known about at all. It was a small door, made for the smaller witches and wizards of the past, and behind its curtain of clinging moss and twining vines, it blended into the surrounding wall without a trace. An anonymous door; an insignificant door. 

And a door wholly unguarded by magic. 

~~~

"Wake up, lazybones!" 

The tip of a hard, sharp object - most likely a wand - prodded between two of Godric's ribs with uncanny precision. Growling in protest, he rolled away to avoid it, and tumbled off the stone bench he had been lying upon. 

"The sun will be down soon," lectured the voice that had woken him. "At this rate, by the time you're well awake, everyone else will be in bed!" 

"Mmph," said Godric, and turned over again, preparing to go back to sleep on the scraggly autumn grass. It prickled his face and made him itch, but he wouldn't notice that in a moment or two - if only the voice would hush. 

"And also," continued Helga, to whom the voice belonged, "I think it's going to rain." 

Brought fully awake by the prospect of getting wet, Godric scrambled to his feet and reached for the woven shoulder harness that held his sword and scabbard. Helga grinned up at him, showing a deep dimple in her left cheek and an oddly charming gap where she had lost two bottom teeth. 

"Don't look at me as if your sloth is all my fault, my lord. If you had not been up arguing with my lord Slytherin till all hours last night, you wouldn't be lying here like a slug in my herb garden now!" 

Since he could not deny the slug remark, Godric seized upon the first half of her statement instead. 

"Slytherin and I were not arguing. We were having a ... a discussion." 

Helga's smile faded a bit. 

"On the same topic as always, I know. If he would only see reason --"

"I will convince him sooner or later," Godric said, fastening the last of his straps and re-sheathing the sword. 

"I heard your method of convincing," said Helga. "Two corridors and a staircase away." She cast a sly sideways look toward him. "Perhaps you should present your arguments earlier in the evening, so we honest, hard-working folk can rest. Or consider using a Silencing Charm. I don't mind the shouting, but I can do without the moaning and groaning that comes after." 

"I don't know what you mean," said Godric stiffly. 

"You know exactly what I mean, my lord," said Helga. "I've nothing against it myself - men's private affairs are no concern of mine - but I would advise you not to let my lady Rowena overhear. A witch she may be, but the sisters who educated her taught some lessons she has yet to unlearn. She would not approve." 

Seeing Godric's discomfort and growing anger, Helga smoothly changed the subject. 

"Come now, that's enough of that. Now that you're awake, you can help me get these things in before the rain comes. I've picked apples, and I collected the honey from my hives earlier today. There'll be something sweet with supper." 

"You treat me like a boy half my age, my lady," said Godric, smiling in spite of himself. 

"Only when necessary," said Helga serenely. 

~~~

Helga was correct: there were sweets at supper that night. What was not there, notably, was Slytherin. His absence quite spoiled her ability to enjoy the almond pastries and baked apples she had been looking forward to all evening. 

Later in the year, it might not have been so obvious that Salazar was not in the hall. The four Founders sat with the students of their Houses at meals, instructing them in manners and making sure they didn't use their fledgling magic to kill each other. But only a handful of children had arrived at the castle so far - sons and daughters of craftsmen, who weren't needed at home to help bring in the harvest. The rest would trickle in over the next few weeks, arriving on rough broomsticks or tame hippogriffs if they were wizard-born, in carts or on foot if they were from Muggle families. Until they arrived, the long feasting tables were nearly empty, and one missing person made a great difference. Especially if that missing person was Salazar, and the one missing him was Godric. 

Helga picked up a sticky tidbit of apple and nibbled, watching Godric all the while. The man was eating with his usual enormous appetite and talking across the table to old Aelfstan, who handled the hippogriff stables and gave the children their riding lessons, but Helga could see his eyes flicking to the hall doors every few seconds. Looking for Salazar; always looking for Salazar. 

Sighing, she pushed the apple away and downed the last of her wine. The closeness between that pair was both asset and liability, she mused. Godric might grow weary of Salazar's long-winded discourses on history and bloodlines, but he cared about Salazar's opinions more than he did anyone else's. Troubles only arose when he thought Salazar's opinions were wrong. 

"My lady?" 

Startled, Helga glanced to the right and found a very young girl standing at her elbow. 

"Yes, Gytha?" 

"Can I - may I have another apple?" the girl asked, with an expression that said she expected Helga to refuse. 

"Of course you may. Eat as much as you like; we never run short here." 

"Really?" 

"Truly," said Helga, and smiled as the girl snatched not one, but two more apples from the platter, then scurried back to her place on the bench. Some of the Muggle-born children were so used to being hungry that they could not believe the overflowing tables of Hogwarts were really for them. Many arrived with the crippling, bone-softening disease that afflicted undernourished people among their kind - the same disease Helga's colleague Rowena had suffered in childhood.

During a relentless series of famine years, Rowena's Muggle parents had reserved the best of their meager food for her brothers, until she had become too frail and sickly to do any physical labor. There had been nothing for it then but to give her to the sisters at the abbey, where she could be taught to make herself useful with quill and needle. By the time she had found her way into the wizarding world, it had been too late for her to be completely cured; magic had arrested the progress of the disease, but it could not repair the old damage from ill-healed fractures. Even now, she walked with a pronounced limp. She was small, and thin, and not very strong, and Helga, who had never been anything but robustly healthy, worried about her a great deal. In fact, Rowena looked as if she could use a winter tonic already, before the leaves had even fallen. 

_Perhaps,_ Helga thought, _I will brew one for her after the meal is over. And I will make her drink it whether she wants to or not! _

Just as they were dismissing the children, the main doors of the hall opened, and Salazar slipped in, looking slightly out of breath. He went the long way round the perimeter of the room, painted wall hangings fluttering in his wake, until he reached his own House's table. There, he bent to speak to one of the eldest boys. The boy listened with a grave expression, nodded, clapped his hands once to get his fellow pupils' attention, then rose and herded them out of the hall. 

Rather than watching them go, Salazar edged his way through the crowd of departing children to Godric's table, where his colleagues had gathered. He bowed to Helga, nodded at Rowena, and hesitated for a bare heartbeat before giving Godric a friendly slap on the shoulder. 

"I am sorry," he said. "I lost track of the hour. They have not sent the other courses down to the village yet, have they?" 

"Not yet," said Godric. After every meal, the leavings were Banished to the tavern in Hogsmeade, where the proprietor, Hengist, passed them out to poorer villagers. There were few hungry people now, with the grain just in and the gardens still bearing fruit, but in a few months, when winter's bite was at its cruelest, there would be many. 

"The women are gossiping in the kitchens again, I'm sure," said Rowena, "or they would already have been here to do the job. I wish you would let us take Muggle servants, Salazar. They're far more diligent than witches." 

Salazar's greying eyebrows drew together in a scowl. "And have them fainting with terror every time we cast simple spells, or sending their menfolk after us with flaming brands? I think not. Perhaps some of those creatures you saw, my lady -" He turned to Helga. 

"Only if you've a sack full of gold to pay for them," she said. "That old man drove a hard bargain." She had met him over the summer at a fair; a shifty-looking wizard selling tiny creatures, brown as dried leaves, which he claimed to have bred himself. 

"Love to work, they do," he had said, patting one of the creatures on its bald head. "Makes them happy as anything. This one built his own cage and thanked me for the opportunity afterward." Helga had thought the creature looked pitiful rather than happy, with its large ears drooping in the heat and its humanlike fingers clutching at the lashed-together bars of the cage, but she had dutifully reported the find when she returned to the castle. 

"Perhaps we can trade for a pair of them," Godric suggested. "The man may have a child or grandchild who needs teaching." He had Summoned untouched platters from earlier courses to the Gryffindor table, and now he pushed a trencher heaped with stewed eels and chicken in wine sauce over to Salazar, who seated himself and dipped his fingers in a nearby bowl of water before beginning to eat. 

Helga, still standing, had a rare chance to view Salazar from above rather than looking up to him. Though not excessively tall for a man - Godric stood a hand's breadth higher - he was much taller than she, and she usually found herself addressing comments to his chin. He looked more vulnerable from this vantage point, where she could see the spot of thinning hair at the crown of his head and the loose thread on his collar. And --

She frowned. There was dust all over the back of Salazar's robes; a coarse, gritty powder that she was sure she had seen somewhere before. 

Stone dust. That was it. She should have recognized it straight away. They'd all lived in a cloud of it during the week when the castle was being built; Godric had joked if he breathed in one more speck, he would be too heavy to fly a broomstick. What in Merlin's name had Salazar been doing to cover himself in stone dust? He was a historian, not a stonemason or an artist. 

She wanted to ask him, but he was talking to Godric, and Godric was responding with such warm relief that she couldn't bear to interrupt them. Perhaps she'd ask later, or mention it to Rowena when she brought her the tonic. Rowena always had logical explanations for things. Surely she would have one for something as simple as a bit of dust. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

~~~

At the earliest opportunity, Helga excused herself from the hall and went to her own room to brew the drink she had in mind for Rowena. It was a long process that required much patience. First the wine must be simmered, slowly and gently, while she added the gingerroot and raspberry leaves and chamomile a bit at a time. Then the mixture must be covered and kept warm till the herbs had released every drop of their essence; then stirred and strained. At last, she poured the finished brew into one of her own cups, casting a sealing spell over the open top to prevent spills, and carried it off to Rowena's room. 

The heavy, iron-studded door opened automatically to her knock, and she entered to discover Rowena sitting propped up on the bed, still dressed in the blue robes she had worn earlier. 

"Are they bad tonight?" she asked, handing the cup to Rowena and gesturing at her friend's outstretched legs. 

"Not so very bad," said Rowena. "But I should rest them - I am walking to Hogsmeade in the morning." 

"You could fly," said Helga. 

"No, I could not," said Rowena, laughing. "I would rather have aching legs from walking than sores from sitting on a broomstick!" Helga laughed too - she was none too fond of rickety, uncomfortable broomsticks herself. Climbing onto the high bed, she settled herself in the empty space on Rowena's other side with a rustling of straw. 

"Why are you going to Hogsmeade?" she asked. "Drink that before it gets cold." 

"I promised Hengist another reading lesson," said Rowena as she inspected the cup's contents and raised it to her lips for a token sip. Though her voice was calm and even, Helga thought her face had turned ever so slightly pink. "His progress has been quite astonishing. I think he will be ready for real books soon." 

"I see," said Helga. "Is he as easy to teach as the children, then?" One of Rowena's duties was teaching illiterate incoming students - at least half of the wizard-born and nearly all the Muggle-born - to read and write. She gathered them in the outer keep every afternoon, tiny children and gangly adolescents alike, and traced glowing letters in the air with her wand till they began to get the idea. Helga sometimes stopped to watch their lessons if she was passing by. The letters she knew, but the words they formed were beyond her; though Rowena had offered many times to teach her too, in private, she had always refused. She passed her knowledge on to her students the same way her mother and grandmother had passed theirs on to her: explaining and demonstrating, making them recite the properties of herbs and the ingredients of potions till they had them by memory. Books could be lost or burnt, but once you knew a thing you knew it forever, or so Helga's grandmother had said. 

Still, she saw the merit of reading for those who wished to learn, and so, apparently, did Hengist of Woodcroft. He had been their neighbor for some years now, since he had come fleeing Muggle persecution, but had not got up the nerve to ask Rowena for lessons until the previous spring. Rowena had seemed at first to view the arrangement as one more task on her long list, but had lately been returning from each session with a look of happiness too profound to be explained by a student's "astonishing" progress. Helga wondered how Hengist could reconcile his dread of Muggles with Rowena's own Muggle origins, but wished them the best of luck if it was so. 

"Oh yes," Rowena said in response to her question. "He learns so quickly I think he must be doing extra work between lessons. It's a shame he was not able to attend a school like ours when he was young." She unwound the tightly wrapped thread from the end of her plait and began teasing out the rippled brown strands. "I haven't told Godric and Salazar about it. They would expect free drinks at the tavern in return." 

"Very likely," said Helga. "That reminds me - I wanted to ask you something about Salazar." 

Rowena shook out the last of the plaiting and shot a wary glance over at Helga. 

"What? It isn't another quarrel? He and Godric fall out over that foolishness of his every other night, it seems." 

"Not tonight, I think," said Helga. "They were playing dragons' bones when I left them in the hall, and Salazar was winning. He'll be in too good a temper to begin with Godric. No, it was something I noticed when he came in late to dinner. There was dust on his robes. Stone dust." 

"And?" 

Helga shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. It seemed wrong somehow. We finished all the construction ages ago; there should not be a speck of stone dust anywhere in the castle. I saw to the cleaning spells myself." 

"Perhaps Salazar has taken up sculpting," said Rowena dryly. "Do you remember the old tale I told you, about the man who fell in love with a statue? Salazar might be creating the ideal woman for himself - one without a trace of filthy blood to spoil her perfection." 

"I doubt that," said Helga, who knew, as Rowena did not, that all Salazar's interest in women would have fit on the tip of a wand. "I think -"

"Yes?" Rowena was sitting up straighter now, her curiosity aroused by the possibility of a puzzle to solve. 

"I think he might have been building something," Helga said. "But what it was, I cannot say." 

There was a brief pause while Rowena took a meditative sip from her cup. In the fireplace, a burnt-through log collapsed with a soft whooshing sound. 

"Does Godric know about this?" she asked at last. 

"He's said nothing to me." 

"He doesn't know, then," said Rowena. "The man is an open book, Lord love him. So if you are right, and Salazar is building on his own, he is doing it secretly. And I trust nothing Salazar does in secret." She drank again, more deeply this time. "What's more, he has no right to be building anything without my permission. I designed the castle's moving parts to my own specifications; if he meddles with them, he may bring the whole thing down on our heads." 

"We cannot confront him," said Helga. "We have no more evidence than a scattering of dust." 

"He would lie anyway," said Rowena. "Don't shake your head at me that way. You know it to be true." 

"What _can_ we do, then?" 

"Let me think about it." Rowena finished the last of the tonic and set the cup aside. "Stay here, Helga. It's late. We can discuss this further in the morning." Bringing her wand out from beneath the pillow, she extinguished all the torches and candles with one sweep, plunging the room into darkness except for the low-burning fire. 

"Very well," said Helga, and made herself comfortable beside Rowena. After a while, she grew drowsy and began to nod off. The last thing she saw was Rowena sitting upright in the gloom, still wide awake, her lips barely moving as she whispered thoughts and ideas to herself like prayers. 

~~~

Godric stirred the basket of dragon bones with the sheathed tip of his knife. Left alone, they were the same flat, dead ivory as other bones, but when disturbed they glimmered red and yellow and blue in the firelight. They reminded him of an opal necklace he had seen his mother wear when he was a very small boy. 

"Your throw, Godric." 

"Hmm? Oh." He picked a bone out of the basket and turned it over in his hand for a moment. "Shall we play for stakes?" 

"I thought you would never ask." 

"Gold or favors?" 

"Both," said Salazar, and laid the two bones he held on the hearth for Godric. "When you run out of gold, we will move on to favors, and they will carry a much higher price." 

"You talk as if you've already won." 

"I _have_ been winning," Salazar pointed out. 

Godric tossed all three bones into the air and caught them deftly on the back of his right hand, which he then thrust under Salazar's nose. "Until now," he said. 

"We shall see," said Salazar . "That's one point to you -" He scooped up the bones, and Godric yelped and jerked his hand away. Even with the fire's heat flushing his skin and bringing out fine droplets of sweat around his hairline, Salazar's fingers were icy. 

"Damned cold blood," Godric complained, making an elaborate show of chafing warmth back into his hand. "Are you sure you only talk to snakes? Sometimes I think you are one yourself." 

"I will warm up later," said Salazar. "My throw." 

Godric swore foully as he watched Salazar toss and catch the three bones he had taken, plus one from the basket. Pulling a thin, irregular gold coin out of the air, he tossed it near Salazar's green-clad knee, where it clinked on the hearthstone. 

"Double on the next round," he said. 

He lost the next round too, and the next, and the next. They finished off the ale-barrel, put more logs on the fire, and kept playing while the night wore on and Godric's supply of coins dwindled to almost nothing. Sometimes he won on a single throw, but Salazar always came back and won twice in a row, canceling out his gain. Soon they would be on to favors, and while Godric hardly minded paying debts of that sort, he hated the idea of losing to anyone, even Salazar. But perhaps it wasn't too late to do something about it. 

On the throw that would cost him his last coin, he waited till Salazar had the bones in hand, then asked abruptly "Why were you late to supper?" 

Salazar did not miss a beat, or a game piece. He caught them all, then dropped them into his other palm and made a fist around them. 

"I am impressed, my friend," he said, and smiled at Godric without a trace of ire. "Trying to distract me from the throw - very crafty indeed, and I never suspected it was coming. Perhaps you're finally learning to hide a few things behind that beard of yours." 

Godric grinned back. Only Salazar would look so pleased about an attempt to cheat. 

"Why were you, though?" he asked. "Were you really working on something?" 

"Does it matter?" Salazar was looking directly at him, but his grey eyes held an unreadable expression, and Godric wondered briefly whether he really wanted an answer. Then he decided that he did. 

"Yes, it does," he said. "I had thought we made amends for our quarrel last night, but if you were still angry - angry enough to stay away -"

"Then?" 

"Then I would ask you what more I could do," said Godric, "and do it." 

Tossing all the bones back into the basket, Salazar pushed it to one side of the hearth and turned back to face Godric. 

"Even though you still disagree with me?" 

"Even so," said Godric. 

Salazar studied him intently, as if looking for signs of further deception. That strange look was still in his eyes, turning them opaque as smoked glass, so that Godric had not the slightest idea what was happening behind them. For the first time ever in Salazar's company, he found himself thinking that perhaps he ought to Summon his wand - or his sword. 

But then the look disappeared, and Salazar's face softened into that of the man Godric knew. 

"I was really working," he said. "And I am not angry. But I think I am finally warm." And when his hand slipped round the back of Godric's neck, Godric found that it was true. 

**To be continued.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

~~~

Far above the two men, Helga dreamt of walking in the snow near her childhood home, wearing the fur-lined blue cloak her grandmother had made for her. She had stood beside the loom and watched while Granny wove a warming spell into the warp and weft of the cloth, but the spell must have failed, because she was freezing. Her feet were so cold they burned, and she could no longer feel the light wind against her face.  
  
On and on she walked, snow crunching under her shoes, breath puffing out visibly in the frigid air. Should she not be home by now? There was the slope, looking flatter than normal under its white blanket, and there the oak trees - but the small group of buildings was gone. She was stranded, with no shelter in sight.  
  
A flash of something dark moved at the roots of the nearest oak, and no sooner had she glanced in that direction than she was somehow standing there, looking down at a tunnel in the frozen earth. The thing at the tunnel's entrance moved again, scrabbling and chittering, then poked out a black-and-white snout.  
  
_No, stay inside, out of danger_, Helga tried to say. The badger came a little farther into the open. Its small eyes, accustomed to moonlight, blinked at the pale-grey sky. Thinking she could frighten it back into its den, she began to stamp her foot, only to realize that she was as paralyzed as she was mute, helpless to do anything about the threat she sensed lurking nearby.   
  
A low hissing sound began behind her, soft and insidious as a whisper, and she struggled in vain to turn round. It could not be a snake; a snake would be sleeping now, curled up in some hole to await the warmer spring days. A snake could not bear this cold.  
  
The hissing grew louder, invading her ears, rasping at her brain, until all thought and reason were gone. At her feet, the badger let out a hiss of its own and showed its small, sharp teeth. And all at once Helga found that she could move, after all, in the slow, swimming way of some dreams, and she ran up the slope without looking back, floundering through the snow, climbing higher and higher. She was nearly at the top -- almost there --  
  
-- and she was awake, squinting through sleep-swollen eyelids at a carved bedpost and a swag of heavy blue curtain. She was not in her own bed, but Rowena's room was familiar enough that she had no trouble remembering where she was instead. After such an unsettling dream, she was grateful to be here, with a companion, rather than alone.  
  
Turning over, she discovered that Rowena had managed to wrap every last inch of the bedcovers around her small frame during the night, leaving Helga with nothing. Well, that explained the snow in her dream: it was so cold in the room that she was shivering, and her hands felt like blocks of ice. She briefly considered unwinding the covers and laying those hands on Rowena's warm body in revenge, but settled for slipping Rowena's wand out of its hiding place and using it to build the fire to a roaring blaze. It was stiffer and balkier than her own wand, but it worked well enough for a simple spell.  
  
From the pale light at the window, she thought the sun must hardly have risen yet. Still, she would have to get about her business for the day. The few children of her House who were here would need help finding their way to the Great Hall -- Godric, Salazar and Rowena all left their new students to navigate the passageways on their own, but she liked to give hers a bit of guidance until they were used to the shifting architecture. After that, there would be plenty of work to do in the garden and orchard. If it was this cold so early in the autumn, the first frost could not be far away, and the trees and beds must be ready before it came.  
  
Helga slipped out of the bed and walked around to survey the bit of Rowena's face that showed beneath the blankets. It looked pale and pinched, and she decided to let Rowena sleep. Only overgrown layabouts like Godric needed to be awakened by force. Anyway, if Rowena meant to undertake the walk to Hogsmeade, she would do better with a good rest first.   
  
The upper part of the castle was empty at this time of day, though Helga knew people must be awake and working in the kitchens and stables below. She went back through the dark, silent corridors to her own chamber, where she spent a few minutes straightening out her mussed hair and crumpled clothing. With all she had to do this morning, she didn't think there was time to take advantage of the baths. They had been her own contribution to Hogwarts' design: her second husband had come from a land where everyone bathed at a rate that most Englishmen regarded as mad and dangerous, and she had acquired the habit from him. Rowena had shaken her head in combined amusement and dismay when Helga suggested adding an entire room just for bathing, but she had patiently worked out the spells to draw and heat the water, and Helga had been well pleased with the result. Perhaps later she would find a spare hour for a visit.  
  
Once she had herself in some semblance of order, she collected her wand and went to the far wall of the room, where a small sliding panel concealed the staircase to her children's section of the castle. There were four of them here at the moment, and she fully expected to find them all still asleep. Instead, she opened the lower door on a scene of chaos.   
  
"Stop it - I can't hear myself think!"  
  
"Leave her be, she's frightened -"  
  
"You're going to wake Lady Helga -"  
  
"I am already awake," said Helga behind them, and the three older children jumped aside with guilty expressions, revealing the youngest girl, little Gytha, who was sitting on a bench and crying. Helga went to sit beside her, and Gytha immediately flung her arms round Helga's neck and hid her hot, tearstained face against Helga's shoulder.  
  
"She was having bad dreams, my lady," said the other girl, Edith. "Screaming fit to raise the roof. It woke us all up."  
  
"I see," said Helga. She tried to detach Gytha from her neck, but finding it impossible, lifted the girl onto her lap instead. Not for the first time, she thought that Gytha was really too young to be at Hogwarts. They had brought her to save her life - her parents, terrified by the first signs of magic, had tried several times to kill her, and might have succeeded if they had been able to overcome her unconscious defenses - but the transition had not been easy. Helga had been wondering whether they should look for a foster family in Hogsmeade to keep her until she was a bit older. This incident would probably seal the decision.  
  
"Don't cry anymore, little one," she said to the top of Gytha's dirty-blonde head. "You are awake now. What was the dream?"  
  
"There was a snake -" Gytha began, and then shrieked in earnest. "Ouch - you're pinching me!"  
  
Helga hurriedly relaxed her grip on the girl. Her own nightmare had been fading into a vague, uncomfortable memory, but now it came back to her in all its horror: the cold, the wind, the sensation of being lost, and the hiss of the unseen serpent.   
  
"Ah, a snake," she said, making her voice as calm as possible to avoid upsetting Gytha further. "No wonder you were frightened. Do you ... do you remember anything more? Was the snake doing anything in particular?"  
  
"I don't think so," said Gytha with a final sniffle. "I never saw it. I only heard it." She looked up at Helga. "It wasn't real, was it, my lady?"   
  
"No, of course not," said Helga. "There are no snakes here. We leave them to my lord Slytherin and his pupils, do we not, Edith?"   
  
"Yes," said Edith, pulling a face. "Slimy, nasty things for slimy, nasty people!" The two boys - Edith's brother Edgar and their friend Alfred - snickered and nudged each other. Helga supposed she ought to reprimand them, but the remark had made Gytha laugh too, and she let it pass.   
  
"And now," she said, urging Gytha to her feet and standing up, "it is time for breakfast. Everyone who wants to eat should go and dress." She watched them run off toward their respective rooms with a fond smile. They might not be perfect, but they were good children; with a bit of guidance, they would grow up to be fine witches and wizards. Even Gytha would do well in time.   
  
Remembering Gytha's dream, Helga shivered. Snakes and Slytherin - they went together, that much was certain. She was no Seer, but she believed firmly in the significance and importance of dreams, and it seemed too coincidental that she and Gytha should both dream of snakes so soon after her disquieting observation about Salazar. Yes, the dreams must mean something. And when she thought about what that might be, only one word came to her.  
  
_Danger._

~~~

**Author Notes**

**Cora**: Thank you!

**animegirl-mika**: Yes, the Chamber of Secrets does have something to do with it. :)

**ickle-helena**: Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've been thinking of writing something set in this era for a while, mostly because I love medieval mystery novels. You're right about the Founders being a bit different than their modern stereotypes - I just have a feeling that over a thousand years, the stereotypes grew till they obscured the real people, if that makes any sense. But I do still want to keep the Founders as close to the ideals of their Houses as I can. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Helga went down to the Great Hall intending to get Rowena alone and explain about the nightmares she and Gytha had suffered, but Rowena was not there. She had already set off for her errand in Hogsmeade -- an errand which, as the morning wore on, appeared to have developed into an all-day affair. When she finally turned up that evening at supper, she looked weary, but enormously pleased with herself, which made Helga even more keen to talk to her. 

Directly after the meal, she set out to do just that, but was waylaid by Godric, who swept her off into a private chamber to discuss the possibility of getting those servant-creatures she had seen at the fair. There was no end to Godric's curiosity: he wanted to know exactly what the asking price was, and how much work each one could do, and had the wizard mentioned what they ate? 

"Table scraps," said Helga, looking longingly at the door, which she could scarcely see behind Godric's tall form. "He said they cost almost nothing to keep. My lord, I am sorry, but I really must be going now." And with that, she escaped before Godric could ask another question.

She headed off toward Rowena's room as quickly as possible, but before she got halfway there, Alfred came running up, wild-eyed with excitement, to report that Edgar had set their bed curtains on fire while practicing a new spell. By the time she had put out the flames, tended to Edgar's burnt hands, stopped Gytha from crying again and packed them all off to bed, it was very late, and she decided she would have to wait to have that talk with Rowena. 

_Tomorrow_, she promised herself as she undressed. _There will be plenty of time then._

But there wasn't. The following morning, the threatened frost arrived with a vengeance, and Helga was too busy dealing with the extra work it created to think about much else. While she gathered the last of the fruit and sealed it in enchanted barrels to prevent spoiling, she set the students, old and new, to mulching the herbs and flowerbeds and giving the trees a final, deep drink of water before the ground froze completely. Luckily, most of them had grown up around fields and gardens and needed little direction from her. Even Edgar and Edith, who had lived within the city walls at Exeter and never touched a spade until they came to Hogwarts, had learnt enough the previous year to be very helpful. 

Still, it was an exhausting week, and by the time it was over, she had nearly forgot her worry about Salazar. She had seen him often during the last few hectic days; in the afternoons, when it was warmer, he liked to take his charges out onto the lawn, where they could enjoy the last of the autumn sun while he explained how Stonehenge had been built and why Roman wizards had not been able to prevent the Empire from falling. Helga had been able to hear him quite clearly from her place among the pear trees, questioning each child in turn and correcting their answers. He had seemed so normal, so much himself, that now she didn't know what to think. Rowena distrusted him, but then he and Rowena had never liked each other. Helga had enjoyed a cordial, if rather distant, association with him for the better part of a decade. She was not so sure that she wanted to destroy it over a set of dusty robes and a frightening dream. 

While she was still pondering all this, and before she had a chance to talk to Rowena, another score of brand-new students appeared at the castle and had to be parceled out among the various Houses. Helga had already claimed two girls and a boy who had proven to be excellent workers during the frost crisis, so she held back and allowed Godric, Salazar and Rowena to pick over the new arrivals. They managed to sort everything out with a minimum of fuss (and, as none of the children were Muggle-born, little squabbling between Salazar and Godric), and at last, everyone could settle down to his or her regular business. 

For Helga, that meant moving her lessons within doors and beginning to teach the potion-brewing part of her specialty. In addition to growing herbs, she had spent a large part of the summer visiting fairs and haggling over the other bits and pieces that gave a potion its power. She had unicorn horn and beetle eyes, dragon heartstring and phoenix tears, and a large supply of snake venom that Salazar had provided for her. The one thing she needed and had not been able to buy was Kneazle claw. Kneazles were rare: hard to catch and harder still to tame, though they made devoted pets once you had won them over. Helga happened to know, through Rowena, that Hengist of Woodcroft kept two of the creatures to catch rats and sniff out dishonest customers, and she meant to get some claw-clippings from them if she could. 

Hengist would probably have allowed her to take what she wanted for nothing, both as a neighborly gesture and in gratitude for his reading lessons, but Helga did not think it right to go altogether empty-handed. She had just made a batch of apple wine with the best of the windfalls, but it wasn't ready to drink yet, and Hengist hardly needed any more alcohol around the place. Instead, she decided to take him some of the morning-after remedy she brewed for Godric. Even if Hengist couldn't use it himself, his customers would surely be able to. 

With a precious glass bottle of the stuff in her pocket, she left the castle and set off down the path to Hogsmeade, wrapping her cloak as close as possible round her neck to ward off the chill. The sight of the sky, now grey with low-hanging clouds, gave her an uneasy feeling somewhere in the back of her mind, as if she had seen it before and could not quite remember where. It made her walk a little more quickly than usual, at least until she reached the village outskirts and heard the reassuring sounds of children playing. Soon she could see them as well, a ragtag group shouting and laughing as they tried to leap up and catch a leather ball that hovered just beyond their reach. Sidestepping the game neatly, she crossed the open common ground and entered Hengist's tavern. 

It was stiflingly warm and very smoky inside, and she had to wait a moment before she could see well enough to spot Hengist at a table against the wall. To her surprise, Rowena was there also, even though this was not one of their lesson days. A wax-covered slate and stylus lay on the table between them, but neither appeared to be paying any attention to it. They were so deep in conversation that they didn't notice Helga at all until she was standing right beside them. 

Helga cleared her throat discreetly. Both of them jumped.

"Well met, lady Helga," said Hengist, recovering. "What will you have? There's a new ale today - it has a spicy sort of aftertaste, just the thing for this sort of weather."

"Nothing for me today, thank you," said Helga, smiling. "I am sorry to have interrupted the lesson, but I have a favor to ask." 

"We were finished, actually," said Rowena. She rubbed the slate clean hurriedly and turned to Hengist. "Just keep practicing today's words until next time. I've written to a friend to see about getting a book for you - my own books would be too difficult to start with, and I thought you might not want to read what I give to the children."

"Give me whatever you think is best, my lady," said Hengist, "and I'll read it gladly." He stood up, and Helga was impressed to see that he did not try to help Rowena to her feet as well; she knew how Rowena hated that sort of thing, but she had not expected Hengist to.

While Rowena was making her own way out of her seat, Helga explained why she had come and what she needed. The request earned her an uproarious laugh from Hengist.

"You're welcome to whatever you can get, my lady, but getting it will be no easy task. Those beasts have minds of their own, and they're immune to pacifying magic. You can't Stun them, nor cast a sleep spell on them."

"How would you suggest I go about it, then?"

"Ask their leave first," said Hengist, "and make sure you have it before you go on."

"I'll help you," Rowena volunteered. "They know me a bit."

Hengist's good humor faded somewhat at this, and his broad forehead, already creased with time and weather, furrowed deeper in a frown. 

"Be very careful, my lady," he said. "I don't wish to see you hurt. Either of you," he added hastily, glancing at Helga.

To help them get started, he fetched a thick slice of ham from the outdoor kitchen and used it to lure the Kneazles out of their hiding place under a bench, where, he said, they liked to lie in wait and pounce on the ankles of unsuspecting patrons. Helga nearly gasped at the sight of them: great tawny, spotted creatures with brush-ended tails, both looking as if they would have been quite at home with the wild cats in the Forbidden Forest. By dropping pieces of ham in a trail, she and Rowena managed to coax them into a quieter corner, where they crouched on their haunches and waited expectantly for the rest of the treat.

"That one is Tiw," said Rowena, pointing to the larger animal on the left, "and the other is Hretha." 

"A war god and goddess?"

"It is quite appropriate, once you know them," said Rowena. "Well, we may as well get on with it. You talk."

Helga swept her cloak and skirts underneath her and sat right down in the straw - it was freshly spread; Hengist ran a tidy establishment - to address the Kneazles up close.

"I know how very magical you both are," she began. "And it would be most helpful if I could borrow a bit of your magic to assist with my own. Your claws -"

Tiw hissed and flattened his ears against his huge head, and Hretha let out a warning growl. They clearly understood her, and just as clearly did not care for the idea.

"I would grow them first," Helga said. "I only need a few clippings, that's all. You would never miss what I took."

The Kneazles exchanged a long, significant look with each other, then stretched out their necks and sniffed at Helga as if they were sizing her up. Still sniffing, Tiw came forward and stepped onto her knee to get a better view. Hot breath and a cool, wet nose brushed her cheek, and she struggled to remain perfectly still - who knew what they might do if she flinched? But apparently satisfied by whatever he sensed, Tiw returned to his place on the floor and lifted one front paw, spreading a set of pink, healthy claws that were nearly as long as Helga's smallest finger. 

"Very impressive," said Rowena behind her. 

Tiw cocked his head. _I know it_, his expression seemed to say.

"Thank you," Helga told both of them. "Now if you will permit me -" Shaking her wand out of her sleeve, she extended it for Tiw's approval, then touched it lightly to his paw and watched the claws spring out to three times their original length. With a small, sharp knife, she trimmed each one and stowed the excess in the pouch that hung around her waist. As soon as she had finished with the first paw, the Kneazle held up the other for her attention.

"Will that be enough to use in your lessons?" Rowena asked. 

"It will do until someone can visit a market town," said Helga, now busy growing and trimming Hretha's claws. "I doubt I'll have to wait long. Godric seems dead set on getting a pair of those new servant-creatures, and that will mean going to Maeldun - the wizard who sold them was heading there for the winter."

"I wish I could go," said Rowena. "Maeldun is a port town, is it not? I have read about the sea, but I have never seen it for myself."

"There isn't much to see," said Helga. "Cold green water for miles, and salt getting into everything, and no end of sickness and storms if you dare go on a boat. Give me the land any day." A final flick of her knife took the last claw, and she dropped both items into the pouch, tightened its strings with a decisive jerk, and stood up. "Thank you again, my beauties. Here you are." Taking the remainder of the ham from Rowena, she laid it down before the Kneazles as if she were making an offering to their namesake god and goddess. They fell upon it immediately, not seeming to notice that the two women were departing.

"I missed you this week," Rowena said as they threaded their way back through a sudden press of people who had finished their day's work and come in for refreshment. "Every time I saw you pass by, it looked as if you were in the middle of an emergency."

"I probably was," Helga said. "If I never cast another antifreeze spell again, it will be too soon. Ouch!" She had collided with a large wizard clutching a drinking horn in each hand. 

"Forgive me, my lady -"

"No harm done." She turned to Rowena. "I think we ought to leave before we are trampled, don't you?"

"I cannot go just yet," said Rowena. "I have a thing or two still to do here." 

"Of course," said Helga gravely, doing her best not to smile at the thought of what Rowena might still have to do, and with whom.

"I know you are laughing at me," Rowena complained. "I can hear it in your voice."

"I expect a full report later."

"You shall have one," Rowena said. "And I have not forgotten what we discussed before the frost. I have an idea that may interest you."

"Very well," said Helga. By now she had all but decided not to pursue her fleeting suspicion of Salazar any further, but it couldn't hurt to hear Rowena's thoughts on the matter. Leaning over, she kissed Rowena on the cheek and pressed the potion bottle into her hand. "Give this to Hengist with my thanks, and come to see me the moment you get back to the castle. I will be in the heating room."

"I will see you there," said Rowena, and forged off through the crowd, scarcely limping at all.

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**Author's Note**: Thanks to mariagoner for reviewing the last chapter! More of Godric and Salazar to appear in the next one.


	5. Chapter 5

For most of his life, Godric had spent the better part of every day out of doors, either riding out to hunt or flying over wood and field. These days, he was cooped up in the castle more often than not, with an endless stream of documents to sign and trades to arrange and disputes to resolve. When it all grew to be too much, he would slip away to the hippogriff stables to spend a few moments stroking the beautiful creatures and fantasizing about escaping on one of them. He wondered if they felt as imprisoned in their stalls as he did in his chamber.

Today his thoughts had begun drifting toward the stables long before noon, but he had never found an opportunity to go there, and now darkness was already beginning to fall. Sighing, he pushed away the ink jar and rubbed his forehead. Perhaps if he did not sit up talking with Salazar this evening, he could wake early enough to fit in a ride before tomorrow's work began. It would be a good start to the morning ... it would ...

"Falling asleep already, my friend?"

Godric jerked upright, startled to find Salazar right there at his elbow. "Certainly not."

The corners of Salazar's mouth twitched with suppressed humor, and he draped a black-clad arm around Godric's shoulders. "Certainly so. Look, they are coming in to lay the tables." With his free hand, he gestured toward the other end of the hall, where several of the servants were busy floating benches and trestles into place while others brought in stacks of white cloths for covering.

"Perhaps I did close my eyes for a minute," Godric admitted.

"I shouldn't make myself too comfortable if I were you," said Salazar. "Erik has just told me that there are two new boys at the gate, asking for admittance. They have been travelling for some weeks and have only just reached the castle."

"Well, tell Erik to bring them in and warm them up at the fire," said Godric, shuffling all his scribbled-over parchment into a large, untidy heap and banishing it to his own chamber with a sharp tap of his wand. "We shall all have a look at them later and decide who should take them on."

"I have not finished," said Salazar in frosty tones. He removed his arm from its place around Godric. "They are Muggle children. A wizard in their village detected some magical ability within them and sent them here, without asking us first."

Godric saw the hard, unyielding expression on Salazar's face and felt a knot of tension begin to form deep in his chest. They had been down this road many times before, and he knew all too well that it was a harsh and rocky one. He had hoped that no more Muggle-born children would arrive this year so they could avoid the issue for a time. Clearly it had been a foolish hope.

"And?" he asked.

Salazar made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. "And? Have we not got enough Muggles in the castle already, or are you starting a collection?"

"If they have magic, they are not Muggles," said Godric wearily. "They are wizards, and they belong here, with their own kind."

"I am not _their kind_," said Salazar. Several of the servants glanced around at the sound of his raised voice, but quickly turned back to their work when they saw an argument brewing between their masters. The knot in Godric's chest grew tighter. He was not certain whether he wanted to run Salazar through with his sword or fall on his knees and beg him to stop this now, before they wounded each other with ugly words again.

"Please, "he said, holding up a hand. "I know your feelings well, and I do respect them, but I have no choice in this matter. The children are already here, and it is too late in the season to send them back to where they came from, especially alone. They would surely die on the journey. I know you would not want your own sons to be treated so."

Salazar's jaw clenched, but he gave a curt nod. "Very well. I will send word to Erik to bring them in. But I will not have them in my House, Godric, do you hear me?"

"You need not," said Godric. "I am sure Helga will be able to find a place for them, even if Rowena and I cannot."

"Indeed, my lady Helga would take in a troll if it came to the gate and said it wanted to learn magic," said Salazar, and spun on his heel to go.

"Wait!" Godric called before he had taken more than a few steps.

Salazar stopped.

"Was that a command, Godric?"

"No," Godric said. "It was a request." He closed the short distance between them and turned Salazar to face him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I do not wish to quarrel with you again," he said. "We have only just made our peace. Will you not let this go?"

He was certain Salazar would refuse; would knock his hand aside and storm off; but after a moment's pause, Salazar brought his own hand up to cover Godric's.

"This time," he said. "For you."

"Good," said Godric. The knot loosened a bit, and he began to breathe more easily. Perhaps everything would be all right after all.

"I shall see you this evening, then," said Salazar, "as usual."

Godric thought of his plans for an early-morning ride and sighed inwardly, but dismissed the thought before it could begin to anger him.

"Yes," he said, and making sure none of the servants were looking, leaned forward and put a swift, hard kiss on Salazar's closed mouth. Salazar's lips were chilly, and he did not kiss back, but neither did he draw away. For that much, Godric was grateful.

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Halfway up the third staircase, Rowena began to wonder if she was going to reach her destination after all. She'd felt so energetic earlier that an unscheduled trip to Hogsmeade had seemed like a grand idea, but now she was paying the price. There were stairs in the castle that could carry a rider from bottom to top, like an angel ascending Jacob's ladder, but these were not among them. If she could not climb, she would have to turn back.

"_Relevo_," she murmured, and put a steadying hand on the stone wall as the spell made her temporarily lighter. When she had her balance again, she took another step, then another -- yes, it was much better this way, with less weight on her bad hip. The relief was so sweet it nearly brought tears to her eyes. Other people might turn to drink and fornication for their pleasures, but for Rowena, the greatest pleasure lay in the easing of pain, and she knew a hundred ways to achieve it.

_Not that there isn't something to be said for drink and fornication_, she thought, smiling to herself as she climbed. Her hip still ached vaguely, but she was used to that. She'd been barely eight years old when she'd broken it, sitting in her father's hall and watching her brothers play blind man's bluff. They had been running in circles, shrieking, trying to get away from Drustan, the youngest, who was the blind man.The fire had been hot on her back; the boys' yells hurting her ears. She had closed her eyes for a moment to shut them out, and that was when Drustan had stumbled and fallen over her, smashing her brittle bones like a glass beaker.

Everyone had said she would die, or at best end up bedridden for life, but by a miracle -- which the older Rowena had identified as the early stirrings of her magic -- she had lived to walk again. Never as well or as easily as before, but she had walked. And was still walking, albeit with pain, almost thirty years later.

At the last step, she waited, catching her breath, until the staircase detached from its moorings and made a slow, graceful arc through the air, carrying her with it. It reached the far wall and settled seamlessly into place, and Rowena stepped off, frowning now. That had not been right; the staircase should have moved just as she reached the top. She would have to check the alignment again. After all the work she had put into developing a system of moving parts that made it easier for her to navigate the castle, she was not going to have the thing break down on her. If you knew the system, you could get from the Great Hall to the top of the stargazing tower in only a few minutes, with almost no effort. If you did not know it, you would find yourself in the kitchens when you had meant to go to the sleeping chambers. She enjoyed seeing the children try to work it out.

She limped down the third-floor corridor as quickly as she could, wanting to get to Helga's heating room before she had to cast another lightening spell. When she finally reached the room, the heavy plank door was ajar. Helga's voice drifted out through the gap, so low and honeyed that anyone would have thought she was addressing a lover. Rowena, who knew better, nudged the door open a bit farther and slipped inside.

The heating room lived up to its name: each corner held a smooth stone, large enough to sit on, which was enchanted to give off steady, gentle warmth. A long table stood in the center of the room, and there Helga was working, bent over a row of clay pots.

"Warm as toast, that's how you'll be," she was saying, apparently to the pots themselves. "Enjoy the rest, and I will see you in the spring."

"Are you talking to the mandrakes again?" Rowena asked.

Helga glanced up and smiled, not at all startled by Rowena's sudden appearance.

"They like it," she said, brushing loose soil off her hands and rolling down her sleeves, which had been turned back to keep them clean. "So would you if you spent most of your life buried up to your chin in the dirt."

"Let us hope I never come to that," said Rowena. She pointed her wand at a three-legged stool and shortened its legs until she could perch on its seat without having to clamber up, then grew it to full size again. "A wizard called Irminric the Irritable once spent twenty years that way. He had to rely upon his friends to feed him by hand. It ended badly."

"With such a name, I am surprised he had any friends at all," said Helga. Leaving her work, she sat on the stool beside Rowena's and regarded her intently, as if trying to read what she had been up to in her eyes.

Rowena returned the scrutiny. Even after fifteen years among witches and wizards, she was still amazed at their aging process. Helga was past forty - an age at which Muggle women were already old, if indeed they were still alive - but she had only a few lines around eyes and mouth to show for it. Nor was there so much as a streak of grey in the fair hair she had got from her Northern forebears. In all, Rowena thought, Helga had not changed a whit since the first moment she had seen her, standing at the abbey gates and asking politely for a night's lodging.

Rowena did not look at her own reflection very often, but she knew that the same magic was at work in her as well; she had still the face she had worn at twenty-five, even though she, too, was approaching her fortieth year. It was strange to think that she would remain this way long after everyone she had known in her childhood was gone, but she did not mind. It would give her all the more time to learn everything there was to know.

"Well?" Helga asked. "I am waiting. You promised to tell me everything about your afternoon."

"I did, didn't I?" said Rowena, grinning. "But you will have to wait. I want to talk about Salazar first."

"I am perishing of curiosity, and you want to talk about Salazar? You are a wicked woman, Rowena." Helga pretended to pout, then laughed. "All right. You said you had had an idea. What is it?" As she spoke, she stood up again and returned to her pots.

"Well, after you told me about the stone dust on Salazar's robes, I cast a few spells to see if anything had gone wrong with the architecture," Rowena said. "I found nothing, but if he were building something he did not want anyone to know about, I am certain he would attempt to cover it up. So I wondered -- what do you think about dowsing for it, whatever it is? That's an earth magic, just your sort of thing."

Helga scooped a handful of dried, powdered dragon dung from a sack and distributed it deftly around the roots of the first mandrake in line. "We could try. But do you not think Salazar would notice us traipsing round the corridors with a pair of hazel rods?" She handed the pot to Rowena and dusted her hands off on her skirt.

"We wouldn't have to," said Rowena, reaching up to stow the pot on a shelf within reach of her stool. "I mapped out every wall and door in the castle when it was built. If we use the maps --"

"I see what you are getting at," said Helga. "I will still need a rod, though. And I ought to cut it myself, if I am to work the spell."

"Have we any hazel trees on the grounds?"

Helga shook her head. "No, I would have to go into the forest. Not too far, though. There are a few hazels near the outskirts; I found them when we went after nuts not long ago."

"You cannot go alone," Rowena pointed out. "You could stun a beast if you saw it coming, but not if it crept up on you while you were busy cutting wood."

"Are you offering to go with me?"

"I suppose I am," said Rowena with a grimace. "I cannot say I care for the forest, but I couldn't bear for you to become a werewolf's supper, either. You may rely upon me."

"I always do," said Helga. She wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. "Truly, Rowena, I am not certain that we need to do this. I have been watching Salazar ever since you and I spoke, and I have seen nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps the stone dust did not mean what I thought it meant. I would hate to endanger either of us for no reason, or to upset Salazar if he were to realize that we had suspected him of wrongdoing."

"We are better off knowing than not knowing," said Rowena firmly. "And I would not give two Knuts for Salazar's feelings."

"What a charming sentiment, my lady," said a voice from the open door.


	6. Chapter 6

Rowena did her best to school her face into an expression of bland innocence, but she was certain she looked like a guilty child caught telling tales behind another's back. Helga looked equally uncomfortable, and Rowena supposed they were thinking the same thing: just how much of their conversation had Salazar overheard?

"I did not know you felt so tender toward me, my lady," Salazar said. He came into the room, treading silently in his soft indoor shoes, and set the large wooden box he carried down on Helga's worktable. "I would have thought you valued my feelings at less than one Knut, not two."

"I dare say you know precisely how I feel toward you, my lord," said Rowena, "since you seem to be an expert at listening at doors." There was the bait; would he take it?

"I was doing nothing of the sort," said Salazar. "I was bringing two of my snakes here to keep warm over the winter, as my lady Helga said I might. I mean to breed them while the others are hibernating." A rasping, slithering sound emerged from the box, and Helga, who was nearest it, shivered and stepped away.

"Of course, my lord, I remember now," she said. "You may put them anywhere, as long as they are confined. I would rather not have them getting into my plants and seeds, or ... or creeping about." Picking up her wand, she turned away abruptly and began lighting the torches in their wall brackets, stretching up on tiptoes to reach each one.

"I thought you, at least, would not be frightened of them," said Salazar with a disapproving glance at her.

_So did I_, thought Rowena. What was wrong with her friend? Helga nursed orphaned hedgehogs and put out suet for the birds when it snowed. She had approached Tiw and Hretha without a second thought, when even Hengist, who owned them, was cautious about touching them. It was not like her to be skittish around any sort of animal.

"Well, you are hardly the only one," said Salazar. He reached into the box and lifted out one of the snakes, a long, speckled creature that coiled itself around his forearm and clung there. "They are often misunderstood. Hated and feared; accused of all sorts of evil acts by the low-born - as if it were the serpent's fault that the silly woman ate the apple. Is that not what you were taught to believe, my lady?" He shot a sharp glance at Rowena.

"I fail to see how my beliefs are any business of yours, my lord. But I am not superstitious, if that is your concern. We should not blame creatures for being what they were born to be, should we?"

"Nor should we expect them to be anything else," said Salazar, and laid the snake gently back in the box. Bending over its open top, he opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead made a string of low sibilant noises that Rowena felt as much as heard. They thrummed in her ears first, then seemed to spread throughout her body, crawling across her skin until the very tips of her fingers vibrated. At the same time, she felt the uneasy tingle of a sensation she had only lately learned to recognize as arousal. Startled, she looked at Helga, but Helga's face was in shadow and revealed nothing.

Salazar kept hissing, and Rowena squirmed in her seat as a flush crept up her neck and a humiliating dampness began to form in her lower regions. It was shameful. She did not find Salazar even slightly attractive, and had as little desire to touch him as she was sure he had to touch her, but something within her could not help reacting to that sound. She gripped the edge of the stool and counted to ten, first in Latin, then in Greek, and then, for good measure, in Norse. After what seemed like a thousand years, Salazar finished saying whatever he had been saying, and she let out a slow breath as the atmosphere in the room returned to normal.

_So that is Parseltongue_, she thought, wishing she could take off a layer of clothing, or at least fan herself without anyone noticing. _I wonder whether he speaks to Godric that way when they are alone together. It would certainly explain a great deal._

"They will not leave their shelter," said Salazar to Helga. "I have explained to them that they must not."

"Thank you, my lord," said Helga in an unsteady voice. She stepped forward, into the light, and Rowena saw her throat convulse as she swallowed, just above the brooch that closed the neckline of her dress.

"And now I shall take my leave of you," Salazar said, dark eyes flickering from Helga to Rowena. "They are laying the tables downstairs. You should come before the children eat everything. I am told we are to expect two new ones this evening."

"Oh?" asked Rowena. "Boys or girls?"

"Boys," said Salazar. "You will want to see them, I am sure, my lady." He paused. "They are ... your kind."

He left the room without another word, and Helga turned swiftly to Rowena.

"Do you think he heard what we were saying?"

"I don't think so," said Rowena. "Although if he had, he might very well have kept it to himself."

"You are quite right," said Helga. She aimed her wand at the box that held the snakes and levitated it off the table and toward the farthest corner of the room, where she set it down atop one of the heating stones.

"They ought to like that," she said, putting the wand away. "I do not want them reporting to Salazar that I have been mistreating them!"

"No, indeed," said Rowena. "Certainly not if it means more of that language of his. I knew that he could speak it, but I have never heard him do so before. Have you?"

"Once or twice." Helga came back to the empty stool beside Rowena and sat down on it as if she had been pushed. "I take it you noticed the, ah, secondary effects?"

"Is that what you call them? Yes, I did. I still feel unclean. He might as well have lifted up my skirts and put his hands where they did not belong."

"I know," said Helga, putting her arm around Rowena and giving her a small, sympathetic squeeze. "It is most unsettling the first time."

"And the second and third time, if your behavior was any indication," said Rowena. "I cannot recall when last I saw you so upset."

"It was not Salazar who upset me," Helga said. "It was the snakes. I had a dream - well, it isn't important."

"Isn't it?" asked Rowena shrewdly. She paused, waiting for an answer from Helga, then went on. "Well, regardless, I am more determined than ever to find out what Salazar has been doing in his spare time. I say we cut that hazel rod tonight. If we get it under cover of darkness, Salazar cannot wonder what we are doing with it."

"Meet me at the head of the stairs at moonrise, then," said Helga. "We shall need all the light we can get."

"And all the luck," said Rowena.

"That too."

Salazar was absent at dinner again. Rowena and Helga exchanged significant glances over the heads of their assorted charges when they realized it, then turned as one to look at Godric, who was ignoring his meal to read something written on a scrap of parchment. Helga had given up on eating as well, Rowena noted; the youngest girl in her House had crept into her lap and appeared to be falling asleep there, her fair head drooping against Helga's shoulder.

Rowena picked at her own food without tasting it - it was fish from the lake, not her favorite thing anyway - and watched Godric read the mysterious parchment several times before abruptly swinging his long legs over the bench and rising to leave the hall. She could not get up fast enough to intercept him, but Helga saw too, and thrusting the now-sleeping child into the arms of a bigger girl at her table, hurried after Godric and caught him not far from where Rowena was sitting.

"You cannot leave so soon, my lord Godric," she said.

"Why not?" Godric's voice was more brusque than usual, and he looked as if he would have liked to push past Helga and be on his way.

"The new boys," said Helga. "We have not sorted them out yet. They should be sent to their proper places tonight so they can begin settling in."

"Yes, yes," said Godric distractedly. "Keep them behind when you dismiss the others." He paused. "There must be a more efficient way to decide where each child should go. I am sick of arguing over it."

"I am certain you will think of something if you put your mind to it, my lord," said Helga. She laid a small, strong hand on Godric's forearm. "Go, be seated, and Rowena and I will see to the dismissal."

When all the children but the two new boys had gone, Helga, Rowena and Godric all gathered at one end of the hall to quiz them. They were a likely-looking pair of brothers; one thirteen or fourteen years old and already growing into a sturdy young man; the other a few years younger, ginger-haired and slender. Both kept stealing awed glances at the enchanted ceiling, which tonight was starless and thick with swiftly moving clouds. They had seen some magic before, the elder boy explained, but never anything like this.

"The man who sent you here showed you this magic?" Godric inquired.

"He's a wizard!" piped up the younger boy. "He can do things you wouldn't believe!"

"I think I might believe them," said Godric, his face relaxing into a smile for the first time all evening. "Tell me, what else did this wizard show you?"

"All sorts of things," said the boy. "He taught us how to read. He lets me look at his books - the most wonderful books, with big letters done in red and gold. I could read them all day."

"You shall here, if you like," Rowena said, catching Godric's eye and nodding. "And you, boy? Do you love books the way your brother does?"

The elder boy shrugged. "They're all right. I'd rather be outside, though, helping my father. The old man told us that if we came here, I'd learn how to make things grow better than anyone else. I told my mother to tell my father when he came back -"

"You did not have your father's permission to come?" Rowena cut in. She was hardly one to criticize a lack of filial respect, having defied her own father's authority when she left the abbey with Helga. She had been no asset to him, though - a sickly, crippled, unmarrigeable daughter who could do nothing for him but pray for his soul - and had known he would care little, if at all, if he heard she had gone. A father might feel differently about learning that two of his sons had disappeared on their own initiative to study magic.

The boy squirmed. "There wasn't time, my lady. He had gone to a big market in a town far away, and the old man said that if we didn't leave at once, we wouldn't be able to come until next year, or maybe never. There was a friend of his there with a cart, and he was going in the morning, so ..."

"I see," said Rowena. "Godric?"

"Well, it is not the first time such a thing has happened," Godric said, drumming his fingers on the hilt of his sword as he considered the situation. "It is unfortunate if the father is not happy, but at worst he will tell the boys they cannot come back next autumn, and at best he will realize the value of having two wizards in his family. Either way the boys will get at least one year of training under their belts."

"Very well," Rowena said. "I will take the little one, and Helga, I think, will want the other."

"Yes, indeed," said Helga, with a warm smile at the elder boy, who reddened, clearly flustered by receiving this much attention from two ladies. Rowena hoped it would not take him too long to learn to accept their authority. She had had trouble in the past with Muggle-born boys who thought themselves above being ordered about by women. A good whipping usually set them straight, but it was always unpleasant for everyone involved.

Her new pupil, whose name was Caelin, talked nonstop all the way to her section of the castle, often getting so excited that he walked too fast and left her behind. By the time they reached the door to the children's chambers, she was confident that he was more than sharp enough to do well in her House. She sent him off with instructions to get some sleep and not to lose his way in the morning, then went to her own room and tried unsuccessfully to sleep herself. Her hip felt as if someone had hammered a large metal spike through it, and the ache in her legs was almost as bad. She threw off her blanket and regarded their familiar, slightly crooked contours with a sigh. It had been years since she'd cared much how they looked. but she thought she would never stop being frustrated by the way they pained her and slowed her down.

_Well, that is what potions are for, as Helga would say_, she thought. Gritting her teeth, she climbed out of bed, hobbled to the carved chest under the window, flung open the lid, and surveyed her assortment of painkillers. They were all of excellent quality - Helga brewed them herself, and no one alive could have done a finer job - but different types worked better for different kinds of pain. At last, she chose a silver flask, pulled out the stopper and drank without bothering to measure.

As she was closing the chest again, the wooden shutters rattled with a sudden gust of wind. Wondering what sort of weather she and Helga might have to endure on their errand, Rowena lifted the hook to open them and was nearly blown off her feet by the icy blast that tore through the gap. She held on to the stone lip of the sill and leaned out a bit, peering up into the sky. They would have no moonlight to help them on their way after all. If anything, they would have rain. From where she stood, she could see the dark canopy of the forest heaving and tossing with the approaching storm.

Shuddering, Rowena wondered if she ought to suggest that they go another night instead. Helga would not take much convincing; she was already ambivalent about the idea of pursuing her suspicion any further. But then Rowena thought of Salazar's cold words and unexplained absences, and of the way he looked at her and the Muggle-born children, and banged the shutters closed with renewed determination. She was going to resolve this question one way or the other. Salazar would not meddle in the workings of her castle without her knowledge.

When her candle burned down to the midnight mark, she slipped out and went to meet Helga at the head of the stairs, wearing a heavy hooded cloak over her dress and clutching a knobbly broomstick in one hand.

"I know," she said, seeing Helga's look. "I don't intend to ride it one moment longer than I must, but there is no proper path, and I would rather not trip in a Jarvey's hole if I can help it." She did not mention the pain that had plagued her earlier, or the amount of potion she had drunk to dull it enough for this excursion, but she suspected Helga probably knew. The other woman's intuition was uncanny at times.

Together, they went through the cold corridors and out the side door into Helga's garden, already sleeping under its winter layers of mulch and sacking. Rowena perched sideways on the broomstick, the soles of her shoes just brushing the yellowed autumn grass, and drifted along silently beside Helga. In this manner, they crossed the lawn that surrounded the castle and the rough, stony ground that lay between it and the forest, then drew up short at the forest's verge. Just ahead, trees loomed thick and black and twisted, like giants at a midnight meeting. Dead leaves flew everywhere, torn from their branches by the wind. The first cold droplets of rain spattered the hood of Rowena's cloak.

"It will be drier under the trees," said Helga.

"I know."

"Are you frightened?"

"Any sensible person would be," said Rowena, narrowing her eyes and trying to see through the forest's shadows. "Are you?"

"Yes," said Helga. "But if it is our fate to die here tonight, we shall. If it is not, we shall not. It is already decided, whatever we may do."

"Then why do you have your wand out?"

"In case it is my fate to save us," Helga said, and stepped between the first two trees.

"I don't believe in fate," Rowena said darkly, but she urged the broomstick forward and followed Helga into the forest.


	7. Chapter 7

------------

Helga had gone into the forest many times to collect rare plants for growing and brewing, but she had always gone in full daylight, with servants and older students to help her. Being here on a wet, wild night with only Rowena for company was another experience altogether. Raindrops hissed through the half-bare trees and spattered the mossy earth beneath them as they picked their way through the trees. Every now and then, they heard the crash of a rotten branch being blown to the ground, or a faraway animal howl that raised the hair on their arms and necks. Apparently the beasts of the forest were not any happier about the storm than she and Rowena were.

They found the hazel she remembered quickly enough, and Rowena slipped off her broomstick and kept a lookout, wand at the ready, while Helga surveyed the bushy, spreading branches.

"Are there any that will suit?" Rowena asked, not taking her eyes off the surrounding trees.

"A few, I think," said Helga. She drew her knife and removed several long, forked twigs, murmuring thanks and apology to the tree as her grandmother had taught her long ago. When a living thing gave up a part of itself for your benefit, it was only proper to treat it with respect. Good motives, good words, good actions; all these things made for better magic, or so Granny had said. She could not help wondering what Granny would have thought of her motives in this case - after all, she was cutting this wood in hopes of gathering evidence against a man she had always considered a colleague, if not a friend.

_Best not to think of that now_, she told herself, and concentrated on binding the hazel branches into a neat bundle. She was tying them off with a length of leather thong when Rowena clutched suddenly at her arm.

"I hear something."

"What?" Helga turned to look at her. Rowena's face was pale in the black frame of her cloak hood, her eyes wide with alarm and gleaming with reflected wandlight.

"Listen!"

The sound was so subtle at first that Helga could hardly believe Rowena had managed to isolate it from all the other noises in the forest. It was a stealthy sliding sound, as of something heavy moving across the fallen leaves on the forest floor. As it approached, it grew louder, and they both heard the crash and crunch of vegetation being flattened in its wake.

"It must be the size of a dragon, whatever it is," Rowena said softly. "Helga, your wand."

"Here," said Helga, tucking her bundle under one arm and holding her wand aloft so Rowena could see it. The creature that was making the sound was all but on top of them now; the shadowed undergrowth on the far side of the hazel was bending and swaying with its passage. She thought wildly of trying to escape on the broomstick, but that was impossible; even if it could support their combined weight, they would never be able to get through the maze of trees fast enough, not flying blind in the rainy dark. Beside her, Rowena muttered something under her breath, but whether it was a spell or a prayer, Helga did not know.

"Be still," she whispered. "Let it pass. Do not attack unless you must."

An instant later, a harsh hissing sound erupted from the thrashing, churning brush, and Helga felt her blood congeal in her veins. Rowena's thin fingers dug into her forearm with bruising force, but Helga scarcely noticed; her nightmare had come to life, and she was trapped in it, frozen with the terror of a dream from which she could not wake. Her head swam, but she forced herself to stay upright, knowing that Rowena had not the strength to hold her. The brave words she had spoken to Rowena about fate came back to her like a mockery. This was the sound of fate approaching, and there was no way to know how it would turn.

"It is going away," Rowena breathed next to her ear. "It is almost gone." She was right, Helga realized; the noises were fading, trailing off as the unseen creature moved deeper into the forest. In a moment, the only sound remaining was that of the wind. Rowena's grip slackened and fell away.

"Holy God," she said. "I have never -"

"Nor have I," said Helga. She was certain that her feet would be rooted to the ground, just as they had been in her dream, but when she tried, she found that they moved as well as ever. Thrusting out one hand, she summoned Rowena's broomstick to her. "Come, let's go. We have what we need, and I do not wish to stay here a minute longer."

Rowena re-mounted, and they left the forest in silence, with the bundle of branches lashed to the broomstick's handle to leave Helga's hands free for her wand. Crossing the open ground between forest and castle was torture for them both; it was difficult not to imagine that eyes were watching them from within the trees, or worse, that something was creeping along behind them, ready to strike while their backs were turned.

When they reached the castle, Helga went straight to a side door, jerked it open, and hurried down the steps to the storerooms. Rowena propped her broom against a wall just inside the door and followed more slowly, picking her way so as not to put too much weight on her bad hip. Before she had reached the bottom, Helga had lit a candle, pulled the bung from a cask of wine, filled a rough wooden cup, and drunk the contents down as if they were medicine.

"Give me some of that," said Rowena, arriving out of breath at her side. Helga hesitated - she knew from Rowena's dilated pupils and the slight, almost imperceptible slurring of her speech that she had already had a hefty dose of painkilling potion, and wine on top of that would do her no good. Then she gave in and filled the cup again. After the experience they had just had, she imagined Rowena needed it almost as much as she did.

Rowena took a long gulp, then made a face and handed the cup back to Helga.

"I did not say it was ready to drink yet," Helga said, and finished off the dregs. "Sit down, you look about to faint."

"It was you who looked like fainting just now," said Rowena. "What in heaven's name was that thing? It sounded like a serpent, but a serpent should not have been out at night ... and the size it must have been! I do not recall anything of the sort from the bestiaries."

"We must tell Godric and Salazar about it," Helga said. "If something that large is living in the forest, they ought to know. Suppose it grew too bold and decided to come out? It might harm one of the children."

"If we tell them, then they will know we have been into the forest," Rowena pointed out, "and they will want to know why. What can we tell them that will not reveal our purpose?"

Helga shook her head and filled the cup for a third time. "I cannot say. But it is the proper thing to do, Rowena. If it is some sort of a serpent, then Salazar will be able to talk to it, possibly even control it." Rowena opened her mouth to argue further, and Helga added, "The children are not the only ones who could be in danger. Some of the villagers go into the forest to hunt, do they not?"

"On occasion."

"Often," said Helga. "And I do not think you would want to see them hurt either, would you? Or one of them in particular, I should say."

Rowena frowned and chewed her lower lip for a moment before finally relenting. "You are right, I suppose. Very well, we will tell Godric and Salazar. But not right away. We should at least do the dowsing first. Then if there is something else to tell, we can do it all at once."

"Fair enough," Helga said. She put the empty cup down on top of the cask. The drink's warmth had spread through her body and taken the edge off her upset, but if she had any more, she would not sleep well. "We shall try tomorrow night. I do not think I could hold the rod steady at the moment."

"Tomorrow night, then."


End file.
